Dumb 9000 ED questions. 1, 2, 3 of x

[Alan Browne]

Okay the beast is sitting here and I've taken a dynamic, saturated,
beautiful 120 chrome and turned it into a dull lifeless scan.

Dumb question 1: I assume that as it is LED sourced that there is no
need to "warm it up" (as I did with fluorescent sourced scanners).

Dumb question 2: The chromes are curled a bit (rolled) and are certainly
not flat in the holder. What is the depth of field of the scanner?

Dumb question 3: If I "import" the image from Elements as soon as the
scan ends, what is the next step to get the image over to Elements.
It's "there" but as soon as I quit Nikon Scan 4.0.2, then Elements quits
too.

Thanks,
Alan

 

[Raphael Bustin]

Okay the beast is sitting here and I've taken a dynamic, saturated,
beautiful 120 chrome and turned it into a dull lifeless scan.

That's very weird. What do the histograms look like,
in NikonScan? Is your monitor calibrated in any way?

A "dynamic, saturated" chrome should have histograms
in each channel that cover pretty much the full range.
In fact, the challenge (on such a chrome) can be to get
the histogram to comfortably fit into the scanner's range.

Dumb question 1: I assume that as it is LED sourced that there is no
need to "warm it up" (as I did with fluorescent sourced scanners).

That is true -- no need to warm it up. The scanner does its
internal calibrations just after you turn it on from the main
power switch. NikonScan won't get past its splash screen
until that process is complete.

Dumb question 2: The chromes are curled a bit (rolled) and are certainly
not flat in the holder. What is the depth of field of the scanner?

Pretty narrow. The lens in the LS-8000 has a very
wide aperture -- I'm guessing about f/3.5 or so. You
need to work to get the film flat in the holder. You
can operate the focus control in such a way as to
measure the film flatness -- by taking the focus at
any point you choose within the frame.

Dumb question 3: If I "import" the image from Elements as soon as the
scan ends, what is the next step to get the image over to Elements.
It's "there" but as soon as I quit Nikon Scan 4.0.2, then Elements quits
too.

I'd suggest using NikonScan in standalone mode.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Stewart]

Dumb question 2: The chromes are curled a bit (rolled) and are certainly
not flat in the holder. What is the depth of field of the scanner?

Very small indeed. After some months of struggling to get scans that
were sharp I finally gave up and bought the glass holder - expensive but
a significant improvement. Poor design by Nikon that the scanner as sold
is not capable of scanning 120 properly - although that is the reason
most would have bought it.

 

[Noons]

Very small indeed. After some months of struggling to get scans that
were sharp I finally gave up and bought the glass holder - expensive but
a significant improvement. Poor design by Nikon that the scanner as sold
is not capable of scanning 120 properly - although that is the reason
most would have bought it.

strange. works quite well on my 9K: the 120 carrier has a
"stretch bar" inbuilt that works quite well to keep my 6X7
output fairly flat. at least to the point where I can hardly
see any reflected light unevenness. of course like anything,
if I try to abuse its limits it then buckles the film.

 

[David J. Littleboy]

strange. works quite well on my 9K: the 120 carrier has a
"stretch bar" inbuilt that works quite well to keep my 6X7
output fairly flat. at least to the point where I can hardly
see any reflected light unevenness. of course like anything,
if I try to abuse its limits it then buckles the film.

What I do is I use the AF mechanism to measure the film plane position at
multiple points across the frame and then manually set the focus to the
middle of that range. If that range exceeds the DOF of the scanner, I reload
the film and try again.

Note that this is required with both the regular and the glass holders. If
you are using a mask to hold the film off the lower (not AN) glass, then it
can buckle more than the DOF. Sigh.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Raphael Bustin]

strange. works quite well on my 9K: the 120 carrier has a
"stretch bar" inbuilt that works quite well to keep my 6X7
output fairly flat. at least to the point where I can hardly
see any reflected light unevenness. of course like anything,
if I try to abuse its limits it then buckles the film.

Have you tried measuring the focus at multiple
points within the frame? How much variation
do you see?

I found that with the glassless carrier, the
curvature at the ends of each strip would
cause some soft focusing in these two
frames. For the frames that were not along
the edges, it was relatively easy to get
good uniformity of focus.

"Manual" focus procedure:
1. hold down CTRL key
2. click "focus" icon
3. move cursor to desired
point in preview window
4. Click


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Noons]

Have you tried measuring the focus at multiple
points within the frame? How much variation
do you see?

yes. not much. AF point doesn't seem to vary a lot in
a normal frame. mind you, the film itself is very flat:
I never scan before leaving it a coupla days in a
sleeve inside a folder, after the lab.
That seems to get rid of any curling.

I found that with the glassless carrier, the
curvature at the ends of each strip would
cause some soft focusing in these two
frames. For the frames that were not along
the edges, it was relatively easy to get
good uniformity of focus.

Thanks, will be on the lookout for this.
Not getting much of it yet but it's something
indeed to watch out for: the glassless carrier
doesn't suppot the ends well.

I've found that if I "stretch" the film a lot using
the glassless carrier bar, it buckles a bit and
makes focusing a chore. But if I just clamp
the edge of the film and tighten up gently with the
bar, the film stays flat all the way across the frame.
At least, reflecting a light on its surface doesn't
show any indication of "stretch buckling".

haven't tried a glass carrier yet, still recovering
the finances from the scanner purchase!... ;-)